Belgeux Hunt
by jscwriter
Summary: Neville wants to tell Luna something very different... and Luna just wants to find the damn animal. Romance/Humor, Neville/Luna Drabble-esque


Neville bent over and grasped hold of the Flax plant, somewhat of a rarity in the Forbidden Forest. Luckily, as a Hogwarts professor of Herbology, it wasn't so forbidden as it had been during his school days. _Hogwarts professor of Herbology._ His parents would be proud.

He glanced over at Luna Lovegood, who had come look for the Flax plant with him. She said that Belgeux lived their. Neville thought for a second - she had said that the Belgeux were a sort of pixie, hadn't she? Or had they been a sort of miniature-dragon? He couldn't remember, and decided not to mention them for fear of looking like an idiotic sod.

"Found any yet?" As soon as he asked this he wanted to give himself a kick in the back of the face. _Of course she's found Flax, you stupid sod, we just hit a large meadow of them. You thick little..._

"I haven't found any Belgeux yet, but I'll find some eventually." Neville realized that she thought he had meant her pixie-dragons, and took a sigh of relief. He stood up and rubbed his back, and he yawned; he had been awake since five-thirty in the morning, and it was approaching seven o'clock. _It was a good thing it's spring, or it'd be completely dark right now,_ he thought.

"Erm... Luna, do you want to stop and have a bit of food?" She spun around, and her face took on this confused, almost childlike expression.

"I thought we were looking for..."

"Yes, we are," Neville interrupted; making a mental note not to interrupt her, he continued, "but I figured that you might be... you know, hungry."

"Oh," she said, "that's a good idea." They sat down, and Neville conjured some food for them to eat. They sat there, in relative silence, with only the birds chirping around them, and maybe the occasional curious Thestral; Neville thought he heard them several times, but it could have been wishful thinking on his part.

"Um, Luna - "

"Yes?"

"Well, we've known each other for... well, it's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"We met in my fourth year, and that was fifteen years ago - but fifteen years isn't exactly very long, so no, it hasn't been _that_ long..."

"What I'm trying to say is that we've been friends for a while, right? And, well... neither of us has really found that "it" someone, you see... wait, I didn't say that right. Look, for a while I've been thinking about you - and me, you and me, you see, and I was thinking about whether you and I could be more than - "

"You're not making any sense," Luna said bluntly, blue eyes sparkling.

"I love you." Neville took a deep breath and suddenly felt the urge to cut off his own head with Godric's sword. _Well, I've started, I may as well finish..._ "Yeah, I love you, that would be the general point I'm trying to get across."

"Oh," she said - but not in the disappointed or surprised tone he had expected. The tone was very nonchalant, as if he had suggested that he did not like milk and she was giving the necessary verbal response.

Neville waited.

Luna finished her sandwich, stood up, and began scouring the ground for more Belgeux.

"Wait, is that it?"

"Is what it?" Luna replied as she crouched down next to one of the Flax plants.

"I just told you I loved you, and you didn't reply."

"I did."

"You said 'oh.' "

"That's a reply." Luna talked like their was nothing even remotely odd about the conversation.

"But look, you've gotta say something, like whether you feel the same way or not - "

"No," she said, grasping one of the Flax plants by the stalk.

"No?"

"No, I don't think I love you romantically."

"Oh. So I guess that's it, you know?"

"Yeah, we'll just be friends now." Neville looked at her like she had gone crazy (to be fair, much of the school had looked at her like she had long gone crazy).

"You don't find anything odd about this?"

"Not really. Neville, you'll find someone out there, someone who is great and perfect for you, and, more specifically, someone who is not me." She shrugged. "But I still like you as a friend."

"Oh - okay, I guess that could... do, maybe." And they resumed their hunt for the Belgeux.


End file.
